1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of treatment and recycling of waste industrial and consumer materials, and more particularly relates to treatment and recycling of solid waste polystyrene packing materials.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Industrial and consumer waste materials have become a serious and major problem of environmental concern. One of the most notable solid waste material is polystyrene packing materials. Because of the advance and development of high polymer chemistry technologies, many high polymer resins have been widely used to make packing materials for both industrial and consumer product applications. However, most of the materials made from high polymer resins are non-degradable and ultimately form the so-called “white contamination” after their disposal which endangers the environment.
Many research and development efforts have carried on which focus on solving the “white contamination” problem. For example, one of the approaches is to “re-prill” the solid waste polythene or polypropylene packing and wrapping materials to produce reusable packing materials. Another example of such approaches is to use pyrolytic cracking techniques to produce gasoline and diesel from solid waste high polymer resin packing materials.
However, while the existing approaches in solving the “white contamination” problems have some beneficial effects, there are certain drawbacks. For example, the products produced by using regeneration technologies such as “re-prilling” are usually inferior to the original and non-regenerated materials in luster, strength and color. The gasoline and diesel products produced from pyrolytic cracking often do not meet the international quality standard. Moreover, during the course of manufacture, the free carbon generated in the process often cause jamming of the equipment.
Therefore, it is always desirable to provide a new method for recycling waste polymer resin packing materials, particularly the solid polystyrene packing materials, while overcome the problems existed in conventional recycling technologies.